germinate in aristocracy and little by little destroy it, like those
plants sown by no man's hand, which thrive upon old walls and become
their ruin.

This is why one knows of every famous Roman personage how many wives he
had and of what family they were. The marriage of a Roman noble was a
political act, and noteworthy; because a youth, or even a mature man,
connecting himself with certain families, came to assume more or less
fully the political responsibilities in which, for one cause or
another, they were involved. This was particularly true in the last
centuries of the republic,--that is, beginning from the Gracchi,--when
for the various reasons which I have set forth in my "Greatness and
Decline of Rome," the Roman aristocracy divided into two inimical
parties, one of which attempted to rouse against the other the
interests, the ambitions, and the cupidity, of the middle and lower
classes. The two parties then sought to reinforce themselves by
matrimonial alliances, and these followed the ups and downs of the
political struggle that covered Rome with blood. Of this fact the
story of Julius Caesar is a most curious proof.

The prime reason for Julius Caesar's becoming the chief of the popular
party is to be found neither in his ambitions nor in his temperament,
and even less in his political opinions, but in his relationship to
Marius. An aunt of Caesar had married Caius Marius, the modest
bankrupt farmer of revenues, who, having entered politics, had become
the first general of his time, had been elected consul six times, and
had conquered Jugurtha, the Cimbri, and the Teutons. The self-made man
had become famous and rich, and in the face of an aristocracy proud of
its ancestors, had tried to ennoble his obscure origin by taking his
wife from an ancient and most noble, albeit impoverished and decayed,